In the summer of 2024, education major Jaela Williams 鈥�25 was in Amsterdam conducting research for her senior project鈥攖he development of a comprehensive K-12 sexuality education curriculum. While working with her adviser, Sociology Professor Naomi Braine, Williams had decided that the curriculum could benefit from research into consent.
For Braine, teaching about consent is a vital issue within sexual education at all levels.
鈥淚t is often a neglected area of the curriculum in part because it is actually quite complex and teachers don鈥檛 have the tools to help students understand,鈥� said Braine. 鈥淛aela鈥檚 research enabled her to address consent at different age-appropriate levels and incorporate teaching strategies into her curriculum materials.鈥�
Williams was interested in the way consent changes when commerce is involved, and if sex workers are truly able to give an 鈥渆nthusiastic yes,鈥� beyond the accepted model of 鈥渆nthusiastic consent,” a modern and empowering approach to understanding sexual consent.聽Unlike older models that focused only on the absence of a 鈥渘o,鈥� this model emphasizes a clear, active, and positive expression of agreement.
鈥淚 wanted to meet with PROUD, a Dutch sex worker union, to interview someone about their experience in a country where sex work is legalized and regulated,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 would then use my findings to center sex workers鈥� experiences specifically in consent lessons in the curriculum.鈥�
Unable to speak with the union, Williams interviewed a sex worker and returned home with new insights and a plan to continue her research and earn her master鈥檚 in sociology at the University of Amsterdam. But along with her application, Williams needed to fund her time abroad due to student visa restrictions. So she applied for a Fulbright scholarship鈥攐verseen by the U.S. Department of State鈥攖o study abroad. Although she was accepted to the university in January, Williams only recently learned that she had been awarded the scholarship, which will provide her with a monthly stipend while she is abroad.
Williams notes that the kind of research she is doing requires an understanding that regardless of the protections and the regulations afforded sex workers in the Netherlands, the work is still stigmatized. 鈥淣evertheless, those protections were super important to make my research ethical. I think sex work, in general, is just very complicated, and you have to be very careful when you鈥檙e doing research.鈥�
With her yearlong sojourn beginning at the end of August, Williams insists that access to interdisciplinary studies at 今日吃瓜 has been key.
鈥淚 was able to minor in women鈥檚 and gender studies and sociology and realized that sociology was what I was looking for the whole time,鈥� says Williams. 鈥淚鈥檓 interested in identity studies and education. Sociology is the place where these interests meet and a field in which I feel I can make an impact.鈥�
